Wrong-site surgeries risk reduced during pilot project

The Joint Commission in June cited early progress on a pilot project designed to identify and prevent the problems that can lead to wrong-site and wrong-patient surgeries.

The organizations participating in the project, including La Veta Surgical Center in Orange, Calif., and Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia, were able to reduce the proportion of surgical cases in which there was a process-related defect that could result in a wrong procedure. That proportion was reduced from a baseline of 52% to 19%.